
Rumours is the eleventh studio album by the British-American rock band Fleetwood Mac, released on February 4, 1977. Similar to the band’s self-titled album released just two years before, Rumours features only two members of the band—drummer and de facto leader of the band, Mick Fleetwood, and vocalist Stevie Nicks. The photograph, taken by Herbert Worthington, captures a sense of mystical elegance that complements the music’s themes of love, heartbreak, and personal turmoil.
In the cover, Mick Fleetwood stands to the left, dressed in a long, flowing black outfit with ballet shoes and holding a crystal ball. To the right is Stevie Nicks, portraying her ethereal and witchy alter ego, “Rhiannon,” from a song of the same name inspired by Welsh mythology. Nicks is dressed in a long white dress with flowing sleeves, her hand extended towards Fleetwood in a graceful gesture. This pose aligns with Nicks’ reputation for embodying a mystical, bohemian aesthetic.
A small detail that adds a playful touch to the cover is the pair of hanging wooden balls attached to Fleetwood’s belt. These wooden balls have an interesting backstory: they were originally part of a bathroom chain that Fleetwood took as a joke during one of the band’s earliest shows. Since then, they became his good-luck charm, appearing with him on several occasions.
“I came out—and I must admit I had a couple of glasses of English ale—and came out of the toilet with these, I ripped them off the—you know, I was very destructive—I ripped them off the toilet and had them hanging down between my legs,” Mick Fleetwood revealed in a 2009 interview.
They were later lost, but Fleetwood said he had a replacement made and explained why they appeared on the Rumours cover:
“In truth, I started off as a blues player,” he said. “The whole ethic of a lot of blues music is slightly suggestive, might I say. And suitably, I walked out on stage with these two lavatory chains with these wooden balls hanging down, and after that it just stuck. The original, original ones I do not have — but the ones that I have are very, very old. I won’t say they’re as old as me. But – it starts getting into x-rated commentary here – my balls are quite old.”
Here are photoshoot outtakes from Fleetwood Mac’s most successful release, one of the best-selling albums of all time: Rumours. All the photographs were taken by Herbert Worthington.
Leave a Reply